Five months after Brighton and Hove City Council’s housing department was found to have serious failings, councillors are to receive an update on progress.
The council pledged to spend £15 million to tackle the failings after the damning report from the Regulator of Social Housing in the summer.
Councillors are due to hear what progress has been made in dealing with a backlog of repairs as well as fire, water and electrical safety issues.
The update will be presented to the council’s Place Overview and Scrutiny Committee on Tuesday (21 January).
The committee first looked at the issues facing the housing department in September, a month after the regulator said that the council was “failing to ensure that it meets a number of legal requirements in relation to health and safety”.
A “significant backlog” of 8,000 low-risk and low-priority repairs was highlighted in the report and raised repeatedly by residents at housing management panel meetings as well as at the pre-cabinet Housing and New Homes Committee.
Tackling the routine repairs backlog was described as “challenging” in the latest report, despite workers carrying out between 3,000 and 3,500 repairs a month.
A report prepared for the committee said: “Next steps include analysing repair trends, contractor performance, tenant expectations and recurring repair categories to determine factors contributing to the backlog.
“The council will also gather qualitative feedback from tenants and operational teams to pinpoint any systemic issues.
“To address these challenges in the short term, in addition to the two backlog contractors already in place, the council is scaling up contractor capacity, with adjustments planned to meet the July 2025 target for resolving the backlog.
“Strategic initiatives to improve outcomes include focusing on first-time fixes, engaging contractors for specific work streams and putting in place more planned cyclical and preventative maintenance programmes.
“Regular reviews and ongoing staff and tenant engagement will ensure strategies remain responsive and effective.”
By the year end, 8,943 of 19,150 of routine council housing repairs for 2024-25 had been completed within 28 calendar days.
As of November, there was a backlog of 6,578 routine repairs which were awaiting completion after 28 days.
Issues raised at the September meeting included concerns about how 3,600 council homes out of about 12,100 did not have an electrical condition report.
The report said that all council properties should have electrical checks by December next year.
Been waiting since June 23 for council to fix bathroom ceiling and walls .Ceiling and wall plaster removed but not been back since .It’s beyond a joke and I’m a pensioner .
Is it true that some of the repairs include changing light bulbs?
Hi Sam, Regarding lightbulbs – I live in BHCC sheltered housing. There are some lights which we have to unscrew to get to the bulbs, such as those in kitchens and bathroom. In those circumstances we can contact Estates via repairs for them to replace the bulbs if we can’t do this ourselves. We do pay estates for this to be done when they attend. Bear in mind, light bulbs don’t blow every day, so it’s once in a blue moon, and we’re grateful that senior housing doesn’t want us to fall and possibly end up in hospital.
It’s a very reasonable point, makes me think those should be categorised separately as tasks. Also, are there ways these can be supported within the community instead?
Hi Sam – it’s all sorts of things. Quite a lot of things are to do with fire safety, so not just minor repairs – eg many council properties have the same type of doors in them that Grenfell did, and they need replacing. The council did have a replacement plan for this years ago, but from what I understand it seems it’s wildly off track and lots have still not been replaced.
Many residents will have no idea about these kind of issues in the blocks they live in – the council used to put their fire risk assessments for the larger blocks online but it looks like they stopped doing this some time ago. Hopefully, the timing of the risk assessments not being put online and fire safety remediation delays is coincidental, and not a way to avoid putting safety information in the public domain.
Sounds like some of the 6000 jobs could done by under employed pensioners, people who still have skills and tools.
Makes me wonder if there is a way of outsourcing to the community. For example, I think there is a greater utilisation of Community Payback that could be achieved to provide manpower.
Should be workable, a form of vetting needed just to make sure the safety of residents is ok, I mentioned pensioners because many like myself many already have trades and tools, never heard of anyone throwing away tools. A combination of ideas fx pensioner with tools plus 1 or2 of the payback crew,,,, maybe ??
Sounds like a good idea to me. I have always liked the idea of the community helping themselves in various aspects, and the council’s role within that is to facilitate, such as providing tools, safety checks, etc. I genuinely think most people want their neighbours to be well looked after and maintained. Help people help themselves. Make communities communal.
It’s the bed of flowers technique. People won’t drive over a flowerbed but may drive over a poorly maintained piece of ground. You can apply the same logic to neighbourhoods. A well-looked-after, clean, and aesthetically pleasing area attracts a higher quality of behaviours and pride in one’s area.
Absolutely correct, but the real quest is getting the council bod in charge to get moving instead of having several debates and overpaid conferences on how to achieve nothing, that said a simple start with 3-4 people doing small jobs to reduce the 6000 tally then progress from there, now wait and see.
Well, according to the housing report, they are expecting to be on top of them all over the next few months, even with the 4000 or so job coming in monthly.
Absolutely correct, but the real quest is getting the council bod in charge to get moving instead of having several debates and overpaid conferences on how to achieve nothing, that said a simple start with 3-4 people doing small jobs to reduce the 6000 tally then progress from there, now wait and see.